SYNOPSIS

Victorian Gothic • Thriller • Historical Fiction

The year is 1886 in New Sarum, England, and Atherton Graves only knows a life surrounded by corpses. Amidst a rash of child deaths, he alone suspects they are the product of murder. At least, that’s what the ghosts in his mortuary are telling him. But there’s hardly time to hunt the killer, not with a gang known as the Disciples threatening his family business.

There’s one more problem.

The notorious Black Carnival just arrived in his city, and Atherton sold off a cadaver to a spiritualist working there. The Disciples won’t take that lightly.

Caught between a serial killer, a circus bursting with foul characters, and his own spiraling madness amongst the restless dead, Atherton will undoubtedly become the villain of his own story. The question remains: who, if any, will be unscathed by the rampant destruction he’s invited.

Art by Astrid Tobrand.

a best-selling novel of Quill & Crow Publishing House

“And there he was among them, not quite an angel nor devil of their earthly liberation. He began to wonder if he was as human as everybody else or some grotesque misfit with half his soul in another realm entirely. Maybe he’d shaken death’s hand one too many times and it had blighted him. Perhaps that’s why they were drawn to him—too much of him had already died.”